May

At least 35 Iraqis are killed in attacks that include a car bomb at a Kurdish funeral near Mosul and another at a scene in Baghdad where U.S. soldiers are handing out candy to children.

Shaun Murphy becomes the first qualifier since 1979 to win the world snooker championship when he defeats Matthew Stevens 18–16.

May 2

A cache of explosives stored at the home of a commander of a recently disarmed and demobilized regiment in the Afghan village of Kohna Deh explodes, leveling a portion of the village and killing at least 34 people, mostly women and children.

Six car bombs in Baghdad and one in Mosul kill at least 13 Iraqis, and American soldiers engage in a firefight near the Syrian border, killing 12.

A socialist, José Miguel Insulza of Chile, a candidate initially opposed by the U.S., is elected secretary-general of the Organization of American States.

In the telecommunications industry, Qwest abandons its attempt to purchase MCI, leaving Verizon Communications the victor in the takeover battle.

May 3

Iraq’s newly appointed cabinet is sworn in, though seven posts remain vacant, including that of minister of defense.

A bomb explodes and kills at least 15 people in a stadium in Mogadishu, Somalia, where the interim prime minister, Ali Muhammad Ghedi, is speaking; top Somali officials have been living outside the country, and this is Ghedi’s first visit to the capital since he was elected to office.

May 4

A suicide bomber kills at least 60 Kurdish Iraqis at a police recruiting station in Irbil, Iraq, in the worst single attack since early March.

The FBI announces that it plans to exhume from its grave in Alsip, Ill., the body of Emmett Till, whose lynching in Mississippi as a teenager 50 years ago was a catalyst for the American civil rights movement, in hopes that new forensic evidence will clarify the circumstances of his death.

Paleontologists in Salt Lake City, Utah, announce their discovery of a new birdlike feathered dinosaur species, Falcarius utahensis, that lived about 125 million years ago and appears to represent an evolutionary link between carnivorous dinosaurs and later herbivorous groups.

Astronomers report that they have observed 12 tiny previously undiscovered moons orbiting Saturn, all but one traveling in a direction opposite to that of its larger moons, which brings the number of Saturn’s known moons to 46; a 47th moon, discovered by the Cassini spacecraft, is announced on May 6.

May 5

Elections in the U.K. return Prime Minister Tony Blair to office for a third term of office—unprecedented for a Labour Party leader—but with his smallest majority so far.

A suicide bomber at an Iraqi army base in Baghdad kills at least 13 people, and a further 9 are killed in other attacks elsewhere in Iraq.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day 60 years after the liberation of the Nazi death camps, some 18,000 people, including the Israeli, Polish, and Hungarian prime ministers, participate in the annual March of the Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau, former concentration camps in southern Poland; on May 10 the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, designed by Peter Eisenman, opens with a solemn ceremony in Berlin.

May 6

Having failed to oust Labour in the British elections, Michael Howard surprises observers by announcing that he will step down as leader of the Conservative Party before the next election.

A car bomber in Tikrit, Iraq, drives his car into a bus, killing at least 10 people, and a car bomber in Suwayrah kills a further 16 people.

Patriarch Irineos I, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Holy Land, flees the patriarchate after a number of bishops and archimandrites declare him persona non grata, accusing him of having allowed the leasing of two church-owned hotels in Jerusalem to Jewish renters. (See May 24.)

In the world table tennis championships in Shanghai, Wang Liqin of China wins the men’s singles title to give the host country a clean sweep of the championships.

May 7

A bombing in Baghdad kills at least 22 people; in a period of 10 minutes in Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma), bombs go off at a trade fair in a convention centre and in two supermarkets, killing at least 11 people; and another bomb kills at least three people at an Internet cafe in Kabul, Afg.

A new museum of contemporary art, the MARTa Museum, designed by Frank Gehry, opens in Herford, near Hanover, Ger.

Margaret Garner, an opera inspired by the true story of a fugitive slave that was the basis of Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, with music composed by Richard Danielpour and book by Morrison, has its premiere at the Detroit Opera House; the lead role is sung by Denyce Graves.

May 8

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon freezes plans for an expected release of 400 Palestinian prisoners; earlier in the week, Israeli officials had halted plans to transfer security control of three more towns in the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority.

A grand council of more than 1,000 representatives from throughout Afghanistan called by Pres. Hamid Karzai agrees that the country requires the continued presence of international troops but calls on the U.S. to operate in cooperation with Afghanistan’s government and army.

Germany commemorates the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe; the following day world leaders gather in Moscow to celebrate the event.

May 9

A large offensive by 1,000 troops led by U.S. Marines has reportedly swept through an area of western Iraq near Syria where it is believed the insurgency is receiving logistic support; the offensive is said to have left 4 Americans and 100 insurgents dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announces that the official date for the beginning of the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip will be pushed back about four weeks from July 25 to avoid a mourning period ending with the Jewish fast day of Tisha be-Av.

Several of Tokyo’s rail companies introduce women-only cars on commuter trains as a means of alleviating the problem of men groping women on overcrowded cars.

May 10

Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin signs an agreement with the European Union to cooperate in economic and political matters, including trade and fighting terrorism and crime.

A U.S. federal bankruptcy court grants United Airlines the right to default on its four employee pension plans, the largest-ever such default.

The World Health Organization announces that more than 40 new cases of polio have been confirmed in Yemen.

Iraq’s National Assembly names a committee of 55 members to write a new permanent constitution for the country.

Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, releases photographs of computer reconstructions of the face of the pharaoh Tutankhamen based on computed tomography scans of his mummy.

May 11

In Tikrit, Iraq, a car bomber kills at least 38 people, most of them casual labourers, while in Hawijah a suicide bomber kills at least 32 people; smaller attacks in Baghdad bring the day’s death toll to 79.

A demonstration in Jalalabad, Afg., by students upset at a report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. interrogators in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Qur’an down a toilet turns into violent rioting; 4 people are killed and 63 wounded.

In Andijon, Uzbekistan, hundreds of people take part in a protest, seeking the release of 23 Muslim prisoners charged with religious extremism.

A judge in Mali sentences 11 Muslim men to prison for refusing to allow their daughters to be vaccinated against polio for fear it would make them sterile.

Slovakia’s legislature ratifies the European constitution.

In Brasília, Braz., heads of state and officials representing 34 countries conclude the first Summit of South American–Arab Countries; the two-day meeting is intended to form an alternative grouping that is not dominated by developed countries.

May 12

Several bombings in Baghdad kill at least 21 people; the worst of the assaults appear not to have had a military target, unlike the vast majority of attacks.

A U.S. federal judge rules that an amendment to Nebraska’s constitution banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and was written so broadly as to threaten the rights of foster and adoptive parents and people in other living arrangements.

In honour of the 60th birthday of Pippi Longstocking, Swedish writer Astrid Lindgren’s child heroine, the ballet Pippi Longstocking has its debut at the Royal Swedish Opera of Stockholm.

May 13

Anti-American protests gain in intensity in Afghanistan and Pakistan and spread to Indonesia and Palestine; at least eight protesters in Afghanistan are killed.

Government troops fire on an uprising that had turned violent in Andijon, Uzbekistan, killing possibly as many as 500 people.

Australia and East Timor reach an agreement to divide equally the revenue from the Greater Sunrise gas field, in the Timor Sea between the two countries, and to defer a decision on the maritime boundary between the two for 50 years.

Reporting in the periodical Science, geneticists present DNA evidence from the Orang Asli people of Malaysia in support of the proposal that humans migrated out of Africa some 65,000 years ago, taking a southern coastal route into India, Southeast Asia, and Australia, while an offshoot moved north and west eventually to populate the Middle East and Europe.

Archbishop William J. Levada of San Francisco is named by Pope Benedict XVI to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the post the new pope occupied for many years before succeeding Pope John Paul II.

May 14

Protests erupt in Karasu, Uzbekistan, as hundreds of Uzbeks attempt to flee to Kyrgyzstan.

The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is presented to Ha Jin for his novel War Trash; he also won the award in 2000 for Waiting.

May 15

Newsweek magazine apologizes for printing an item describing the desecration of the Qur’an that seems to have triggered massive rioting throughout the Muslim world (see May 11), and on the following day the magazine retracts the item.

In Vienna the Czech Republic defeats Canada 3–0 to win the gold medal in the ice hockey men’s world championship tournament.

China defeats Indonesia 3–0 to win the Sudirman Cup in badminton, which thus gives China all three of the major team championship trophies in the sport.

May 16

Kuwait’s National Assembly passes a law that for the first time gives women the right to vote and to run for office.

The head of the last rebel group to remain outside the peace process in Burundi signs an agreement in Dar es Salaam, Tanz., to end hostilities.

A celebration is held in Kinshasa to mark the ratification by the legislature of the Democratic Republic of the Congo of a new constitution; the document must still be approved in a public referendum.

May 17

The Paris Club of creditor countries announces that it has agreed to seek from its member governments agreement to relieve Rwanda of debts of about $90 million.

Antonio Villaraigosa is elected mayor of Los Angeles and becomes the city’s first Latino mayor since 1872.

May 18

When a Hamas group begins firing on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, Israel carries out an air strike on the group, its first since the beginning of the truce three months earlier.

Russia and Estonia sign a treaty ending a border dispute between the two countries; on July 27, however, days after the Estonian parliament had ratified the accord, Russia revokes its signature.

A jury in Florida orders the investment firm Morgan Stanley to pay $850 million in punitive damages to financier Ronald O. Perelman, in addition to the $604 million in compensatory damages previously awarded; Perelman had sued the company for defrauding him.

The Russian association football (soccer) club CSKA Moscow defeats Sporting Lisbon to win the UEFA Cup in Lisbon; it is Russia’s first European trophy.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters inducts as members architects Maya Lin and James Stewart Polshek, landscape architect Laurie Olin, artists Cindy Sherman and Kiki Smith, writers Tony Kushner and Rosanna Warren, and composer T.J. Anderson and awards the Gold Medal for Belles Lettres (given every six years) to author Joan Didion, the Howells Medal (given every five years) to writer Shirley Hazzard, and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts to conductor James Levine.

May 19

After a four-day meeting, representatives of North and South Korea announce that they have agreed to hold a cabinet-level meeting on June 15 in Pyongyang, N.Kor.

Germany begins repatriating the first of some 35,000 Roma (Gypsies) to the Kosovo region of Serbia and Montenegro, where they face an uncertain future.

US Airways and America West Airlines announce plans to merge under the US Airways name to become the fifth largest carrier in the U.S.

May 20

Charges are filed in Uruguay against former president Juan María Bordaberry (1972–76) and his foreign minister in the 1976 murder of two prominent opposition politicians in Argentina, where they were living in exile.

Zagir Arukhov, minister of information, ethnic policy, and external relations for the Russian republic of Dagestan, is killed by a bomb outside his home in Makhachkala; his predecessor was killed in 2003.

A U.S. federal judge orders the oil and gas company Exxon Mobil Corp. to pay some 10,000 gas-station owners damages for having overcharged them for gasoline for a period of more than 10 years.

Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts emerges from bankruptcy, which it had entered in November 2004, and changes its name to Trump Entertainment Resorts.

South Korean researchers report in the periodical Science that they have developed an efficient method of cloning human embryos by using the DNA of individual patients in order to procure tailor-made stem cells for therapeutic purposes and that they have already developed 11 stem cell lines by using this method.

May 21

Members of Hamas reach an agreement with the Palestinian Authority to cease rocket and mortar attacks on Jewish settlements and towns in and near the Gaza Strip, salvaging the three-month-old truce.

Afleet Alex recovers from a stumble to win the Preakness Stakes, the second event in Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown, by 43/4 lengths; Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo is third.

At the Cannes Film Festival, Belgian directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne celebrate as their film L’Enfant wins the Palme d’Or; the Grand Prix goes to American director Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers.

In Kiev, Ukraine, singer Helena Paparizou of Greece emerges number one in the Eurovision Song Contest with “My Number One.”

May 22

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder surprises observers by calling for national elections to be held in the fall of 2005, a year earlier than scheduled.

Nambaryn Enkhbayar is elected president of Mongolia.

Yokozuna Asashoryu defeats ozeki Tochiazuma on the final day to win sumo’s Natsu Basho with an undefeated record; it is his 12th Emperor’s Cup.

Finnish driver Kimi Räikkönen wins the Monaco Grand Prix.

May 23

Two suicide car bombers kill 15 people in Tal Afar, Iraq; two attacks in Baghdad kill at least 18 people; and 5 more are killed in Tuz Khurmatu.

The government of Zimbabwe reports that authorities have detained 9,600 people in Harare for black-market peddling and lawlessness.

May 24

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appoints António Guterres, a former prime minister of Portugal, to replace Ruud Lubbers as high commissioner for refugees.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announces that NATO will offer logistic support to the increasing numbers of African Union forces attempting to bring peace to the Darfur region of The Sudan.

At a synod of the leaders of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul, it is decided that the organization will withdraw recognition from Patriarch Irineos as head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Holy Land in view of his loss of the support of his subordinates. (See May 6.)

In talks with the U.K., France, and Germany, Iran agrees to extend its freeze on uranium enrichment.

A referendum in Egypt approves an amendment to the constitution to allow multiparty presidential elections.

The 1,762-km (1,094-mi)-long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, transporting oil from Azerbaijan in the Caspian basin to the Mediterranean Sea in Turkey, is ceremonially opened; the first drops of what is expected to reach a million barrels a day of oil begin to flow.

Donald Tsang, acting chief executive of Hong Kong, resigns—as is required by law—in order to become a candidate in the July 10 election.

In association football (soccer), Liverpool defeats AC Milan on penalty kicks to win the UEFA Champions League championship in Istanbul.

Pascal Lamy of France, the former European Union trade minister, is selected as new director-general of the World Trade Organization.

May 27

Near Islamabad, Pak., a suicide bomber at a Muslim shrine kills 20 people and injures 67; on May 30, in an attack on a Shiʿite mosque in Karachi, two people are killed and at least 24 are injured.

May 28

Prime Minister Hama Amadou of Niger makes an emergency food-aid request; farming in the poverty-stricken country has been decimated by drought and the 2004 locust plague.

In Christchurch, N.Z., the Canterbury (N.Z.) Crusaders defeat the New South Wales (Australia) Waratahs 35–25 to win the annual tri-nation Super 12 Rugby Union championship for the fifth time in 10 years.

May 29

In a national referendum on the ratification of the European constitution, France votes no; the document cannot take effect until all 25 members of the European Union have ratified it.

The 89th Indianapolis 500 auto race is won by Dan Wheldon, the first British driver to do so since 1966; popular favourite Danica Patrick places fourth, the highest place a woman driver has ever achieved in the race.

Spaniard Fernando Alonso, driving for Renault, wins the European Grand Prix in Germany after Kimi Räikkönen of Finland, driving for McLaren-Mercedes, crashes in the last lap.

May 30

In negotiations with Georgia, Russia agrees to withdraw by 2008 its troops and equipment from two military bases in Georgia, one near Turkey and one on the Black Sea.

May 31

In response to France’s rejection of the European constitution, Pres. Jacques Chirac replaces Jean-Pierre Raffarin with Dominique de Villepin as prime minister.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder of the oil company Yukos and once one of the richest men in Russia, is found guilty on tax charges and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Vanity Fair magazine reports that W. Mark Felt, who was second in command at the FBI in the early 1970s, has said publicly that he was the anonymous source known as “Deep Throat” who assisted Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in unraveling the Watergate story that led to the resignation of then president Richard Nixon.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 2002 conviction of the once huge but now all but defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen for obstruction of justice, ruling that the jury instructions were flawed.

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